Change your mental patterns

This longer exploration helps you notice, tag, and release different types of thoughts as a method to change our mental patterns so our thoughts are kinder and more uplifting. You'll practice identifying helpful and unhelpful thinking patterns through a practice that is enjoyable and creates curiosity. A powerful practice for building inner strength and mental clarity.

Why this helps? Understanding how thoughts work builds self-knowledge, emotional control, and healthy habits of mind.

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

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Welcome to Inner Strength Meditations. Let's take a moment.

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You're going to practice noticing and working with your thoughts so you can understand yourself better. This is empowering. When you pay attention to your thoughts in this special way, you'll start to identify thoughts that are helpful, and you will also start to recognize thoughts that are unhelpful or that can sometimes even be harmful.

Three-Part Practice Overview

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This will be a three-part exercise. In the first part, we'll begin by noticing and tagging experiences such as thinking or listening. Next time, we'll explore thoughts or sounds that are pleasant, unpleasant, or in between. In the third part, we'll zoom in our lens to look at specific thoughts that may keep repeating themselves and tag these. For this exercise, it will be helpful to invite an open attitude of curiosity and interest to the exploration.

Settle Into Posture And Presence

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Let's begin by coming into a comfortable sitting position with both feet flat on the floor. Notice the sensations of sitting and gravity pulling your weight into the chair. Feel the support of the surface you're sitting on, and the solidity of the ground beneath your feet, sustaining and holding you. Bring your attention to your spine, inviting your spine to rise upward, sitting up tall, yet without too much effort, allowing yourself to be easy in this posture. You can close your eyes if that feels comfortable for you. Sitting quietly in a very relaxed way. Allow yourself to be very natural. Simply be aware that you are sitting right here in an easy way in the present moment.

Part One: Tag Thinking Or Listening

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After a few moments, you may notice that your mind has wandered to a thought. It might be a thought about something that happened earlier, or maybe something you have to do. This is natural. Thinking is what minds do. The objective is not to clear your mind of thoughts, but rather to begin to pay attention to the thoughts you are having. This is different than just thinking. You are noticing your thoughts as they arise and pass away. This helps you develop self-knowledge as you notice what you are thinking. It also helps you develop calm as you experience that you don't need to respond or react to every thought that crosses your mind's eye. When you become aware of a thought, the instruction is to notice it and tag it thinking.

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Then you can gently let it go and return to your experience of sitting in a relaxed and easy way. Sometimes the mind is drawn to a sound.

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When this happens, simply notice that you become aware of a sound. Tag it, listening, and gently let it go. Continue sitting quietly, and when you notice the mind has wandered to a thought or a sound, simply and without judgment, tag it, thinking or listening. Letting that experience go and allowing yourself to just be exactly as you are, sitting quietly in a relaxed way.

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No need to push any thoughts or sounds away or to stop thinking from happening.

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You're just practicing noticing when a thought or sound has arisen and tagging it. Thinking or listening. Once you tag it, you can turn your attention to sitting quietly at ease until the next thought arises.

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This practice is always the same: observing, tagging, letting the thought go, and beginning again just as you are in the present moment.

Part Two: Pleasant, Unpleasant, In-Between

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Now, we're going to move to the second part of the exercise.

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As you practice tagging thoughts and sounds as they arise and subside in the present moment, may you notice that some are pleasant while others are unpleasant. You might even notice that others are somewhere in between. Whatever you feel about a particular thought or sound, whether you find it pleasant, unpleasant, or in between, practice tagging it as pleasant, unpleasant, or in between. Once you tag it, you can let it go and return to sitting at ease.

Part Three: Tag Specific Repeating Thoughts

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Sometimes a particular thought might keep coming back over and over again. When you notice these reoccurring or repetitive thoughts, you can practice getting specific with your hashtag. This is the third and last part of this exploration. Tagging specific thoughts that keep returning. For example, if you keep thinking about a chemistry test that is coming up next week, that may be causing you some worry. You can tag it chemistry test thought and gently let it go as you return to sitting quietly. You're not trying to get rid of the thought, nor are you trying to figure out or work on changing it. Instead, you are practicing relating to the thought in a fresh way by simply tagging it, softly letting it go and allowing yourself to just be. Each time the thought returns, tag it, chemistry test thought, and let it go for a moment as you return to sitting quietly. If it is an important thought, you can always attend to it later after you have finished this practice.

Inner Steadiness And The Boulder Metaphor

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Part of the way you build inner strength is to keep sitting still, regardless of what you are noticing. Maintaining that steadiness. You are like a huge boulder in a windstorm. Even when the trees are blowing, you don't move. You just sit there as the storm comes and passes, and the sun comes out again. By observing your thoughts or being mindful of your thoughts, you're getting to know and befriend them one thought at a time, so that you can work with them in an empowering way.

Befriending Thoughts And Examples

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You might be aware of an unpleasant thought, such as homework thought, or it might be a pleasant and exciting thought such as my birthday party thought. It might even be an in-between thought such as I need to tie my shoes. Whatever the thought is about is just fine. You are simply noticing the specific types of thoughts that are arising for you, tagging them in an easy way and letting them go.

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Notice

Observe What Tagging Changes

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what happens to thoughts when you tag them.

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Do they change in a way? Do they fade away or become stronger? Notice for yourself what happens when you tag your thoughts. Continue for some moments in silence, sitting quietly, noticing when a thought arises, tagging it, letting it go, and just resting with ease.

Closing And Bell Cue

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When you hear the bell, you can allow the sound of the bell to softly bring you out of the meditation by gently opening your eyes.